Update: Lawmakers send teacher pay raise bill to Governor's desk

CHARLESTON — Lawmakers in both the West Virginia House of Delegates and the Senate unanimously approved a bill to give teachers, school service personnel and State Police a 5 percent raise in July.

The bill, House Bill 4145, now heads to Gov. Jim Justice's desk for a signature.

Earlier Justice had announced he had reached a deal with leaders in the Legislature to give a 5 percent raise to teachers and to all public employees, according to a news release.

The announcement came minutes before a joint conference committee was supposed to meet to hash out a compromise on HB 4145. Schools across the state have been closed for nine days because of the strike, but union leaders want lawmakers to approve the 5 percent raise before they plan to call members back to work.

"All the focus should have always been on fairness and getting the kids back in school," Justice said in a post on Twitter.

Both chambers passed differing versions of House Bill 4145 to give the three groups of employees a raise. The House passed a version to give the groups a 5 percent raise in July, with the intention of giving all other public employees a 3 percent raise.

The Senate’s version, which passed late Saturday night, would give the three groups a 4 percent raise. Senators would use the extra money to give all other public employees a 4 percent raise as well.

"What we have before us today, is the largest pay raise which I believe in West Virginia history," said Sen. Craig Blair, R-Berkeley. "This pay raise just isn't for the teachers, the school service personnel. it's also for the state employees — 5 percent for all."

When the meeting began, Blair said the Senate would recede from its position and would accept the 5 percent raise for teachers. He warned, though, that the Senate would not use the new $58 million in revenue the governor promise but would issue "very deep cuts" to other lines of the budget.

Sen. Ryan Ferns, R-Ohio, said the House, Senate and Justice agreed to a list of cuts to be made to the budget. He didn't have the full list on hand, but said budget cuts were coming to the Division of Tourism, Department of Commerce, the Division of Highways and General Services.

"What ever shortage there is, there will likely be some cuts to medical services as well," Ferns said.

Del. Paul Espinosa, R-Jefferson, said the House was more comfortable accepting that the new revenue would be there, but the "sound approach" is to wait and see if the money actually comes through. If the money does come through, Espinosa said, the Legislature can come back in the middle of the year and approve supplemental appropriations.

The committee vote to move the compromise forward was unanimous. Ferns said the intention was for the both chambers of the Legislature to suspend their rules and pass the bill out today so teachers will return to work Wednesday.

This isn't the first time Justice announced he had reached a deal. The last time, he and the House signed on to a 5 percent raise, but the Senate held out. Union leaders are waiting for the raise to be signed into law before they call the strike off.

"We have to see it go down stairs and pass both houses," said Dale Lee, president of the West Virginia Education Association.

Union leaders rallied with teachers and school service personnel following the announcement, urging teachers to remember who stood with them and vote lawmakers who didn't out of office in November.

"We're ready to get back to our kids," said Kizmet Chandler, a teacher at Nitro High School. "We're glad that we held out and we were able to get everyone across the board with the 5 percent that they deserve."

Jake Jarvis can be reached by phone at 304-935-0144, on Twitter at @NewsroomJake or by email at jjarvis@statejournal.com.

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